With a nasty flu ravaging the country, the best antidote might actually be show tunes. At least show tunes as they're served up in the zippy and utterly delightful revival of Anything Goes directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall. That's not medical advice, of course. It's strictly spiritual – some Cole Porter musical uplift to go with your chicken soup.

Somehow, when this show was on Broadway with star Sutton Foster I wasn't all that interested. Foster, though wonderful in so many ways, seemed at odds with my vision of the worldly, sexy Reno. I'm glad I waited to see the show on tour. Now on stage at the Golden Gate Theatre as part of the SHN season, Anything Goes is just about perfect with the stunning Rachel York at its center.

Erich Bergen became a man in San Francisco. OK, that’s an exaggeration, but when the performer was cast as Bob Gaudio in the touring production of Jersey Boys, he was all of 20 years old. The tour ended up sitting down at the Curran Theatre for nine months in 2007, and Bergen, a native of New York City, celebrated his 21st birthday in the City by the Bay.

He’ll be back in San Francisco for an all-too-brief one-night stand at the Rrazz Room in the Hotel Nikko on Monday, Feb. 7. His show is affectionately subtitled: “An evening of music, inappropriate laughs and awkward pauses.”

“That city holds a lot of crazy memories,” Bergen says on the phone from Los Angeles, his home since late 2009. “When I was cast, I had never really done New York as an adult actor. I quit college – or ‘left the company’ as I like to say – and was sent out on the road into that crazy Jersey Boys land. Suddenly it was this world you dream of with fans outside the stage door. Then while I was here I was in a relationship and all these first-time grown-up things were happening.”

What a party! You expect big things in Las Vegas, and that’s what you get.
The Palazzo put on quite a show before and after the show as Jersey Boys officially opened on May 3, becoming the first show at the Palazzo hotel, which officially opened last January.
The requisite red carpet arrivals saw the surviving Four Seasons — Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio and...

Opened May 3 at the Palazzo Las Vegas
OK, so technically we’re not “live” in Las Vegas anymore (6:05 a.m. flight from LV to SFO – ouch). But given that it feels like I’m still at the opening-night party of Jersey Boys at the Venetian (next door to the Palazzo, where the show actually resides), I feel as live as is humanly...

Earlier this month, I sat down with the stars of San Francisco’s Jersey Boys, the quartet driving audiences into a frenzy every night as Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. You can read the story here.
Here are some tidbits that didn’t make it into the newspaper. If this were a DVD, we’d be in the “special features” section right...

Last night, the Curran Theatre in San Francisco was the center of the golden oldie universe.
The Tony Award-winning musical Jersey Boys kicked off its national tour, but it doesn’t look like the show will be going anywhere for a while. If the phenomenal audience response last night — not to mention all the curiosity at the office from people who hardly...